Howe Two: Polar Vortex

On Monday we experienced the coldest temperatures that Minnesota has had for 20 years. Lucky us! The governor of Minnesota canceled all schools for Monday on the previous Friday. Crazy! I normally don't get too fired up about weather events, but I feel a bit more vulnerable in this house. We are on a well, which means if the power goes, the water goes. So, I have a little ritual of filling our large bathtub (so we can use water to flush toilets if needed) and boiling a couple large pots of water on the stove to keep hot for hand washing, etc, in case the power goes out. On Sunday things started to get really cold, and I got a text from Jenni reminding us to drip our faucets as they were already dealing with a partially frozen pipe in their guest bathroom. We dripped all faucets over night, turned the heat down a tad so as not to run the furnace down, piled extra blankets on everyone's beds, and tucked ourselves in. Monday morning we woke to what looked like a fine scene. Water was running fine, power still on, etc. The windchill was -54 (actual temp -23) when Matt headed to work. I decided I was thankful for the forced day at home to do all the laundry, and dig out summer clothes to wash for the upcoming Hawaii trip. All was well, until I started that first load and only heard buzzing when I started the washer...no water was running into the machine. Wanna make me panic? Tell me my washer doesn't work. I do insane amounts of laundry. So, I paged Matt right away, texted Jenni, and called a plumber (who was very kind to talk me off the ledge and gave me some tips). Long story short--faucets went from dripping to running on hot, space heaters went in the laundry room and in the prestress area below the laundry room, pacing ensued to watch for water damage/leaks, and I trekked out to the extra detached garage to find some lights to put behind the washer (according to the plumber this was a great way to slowly heat up the wall behind the washer). I prayed a lot. I gave the kids a lot of TV. I ate a lot of cookies. Drank a lot of coffee. I tried the washer about every 30 minutes. At about 3 p.m. I decided I would get my hair dryer and just stand in there for awhile (would have tried this earlier, but the plumber told me I'd be wasting my precious time). After about 10 minutes I started the washer again....and....success!! Yipee!! I ran around the house watching for water leakage as an empty cycle ran through, and was relieved to see that all appeared well. Yee-haw!! I felt like a real pioneer woman. Matt brought home a much larger infrared space heater that night and we left it running in the basement storage (which is unheated and where we assume the pipes run through to get to the main room). This made me nervous, so I set my alarm for every 2 hours to go down and check to make sure all was well. What a night. I was so relieved when I noticed the temperature outdoors hit 1 degree--how quickly my perspective of temperature had changed after this experience. Minnesota sounds awesome, doesn't it?? Yes, Maui will feel pretty nice.